School voucher system with a different name

The legislative assault on education in North Carolina continued last week as Republican leaders in the House of Representatives have followed through on a pledge - some might characterize it as a threat - to introduce legislation that would throw an estimated $90 million in state taxpayer dollars at private institutions over the next two years.

Known as House Bill 944, the so-called Opportunity Scholarship Act would create grants of up to $4,200 a year for eligible students toward the cost of private school tuition. The bill is similar to legislation introduced previously by House Speaker Pro Tem Paul "Skip" Stam, listed as a co-sponsor of the latest effort to channel public dollars to private interests.

Supporters of such voucher efforts wrap their initiatives in terms of "school choice." They are fond of phrases such as "meeting individual student needs" and "increased attention in the classroom." And they would prefer you not refer to their plan as "a voucher system," preferring to label the proposed result of their initiative as "opportunity scholarships" or "grants for children from lower-income families."

On the surface, the notion of providing assistance to poor families so their children can have access to quality education seems noble enough. Who can argue with something as American as the opportunity that comes with education?

But under the legislation introduced last week, in order to qualify for a voucher, students must come from households with an income level at or below 225 percent of the federal poverty level, rising to 300 percent for 2014-15.

That means that a family of four could earn about $52,000 in 2013-14 and still qualify for a voucher; for 2014-15 that family could bring in $71,000 and remain eligible for assistance.

Opponents of the legislation say that more than half of the state's current public school enrollment would be eligible for private school assistance in the first year of the program, and nearly two-thirds would qualify in the second year.

In addition, the vouchers (if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck ?) would do little to assist those lower-income families that the legislation's authors say they want to help. That's because the cost of attending private schools is often as much as two to three times higher than the amount of the voucher. The only people likely to benefit are those who can afford to send their children to private school anyway.

Even more problematic is the impact of lost tax dollars on an already-beleaguered public education system. A seemingly endless series of cuts in state appropriations over the last several years has left our public schools ill-equipped to absorb the loss of another $90 million over the next biennium.

At present, North Carolina spends an average of $8,400 for each child in the public school system, which ranks the state 48th in the nation in per-student funding. This move would seem guaranteed to push North Carolina, already two spots from the bottom, even lower on that list.

We certainly will not argue that the North Carolina public education system is perfect. Graduation rates could and should be higher. Dropout rates could and should be lower. The practice of "teaching to the test" must be halted. Ineffective teachers should be removed from the classroom, and inefficient programs must be modified or shelved. There is always room for improvement.

But that is no reason to funnel public money to private interests and away from one of society's most critical public goods - education. Here's hoping that cooler heads prevail in the Senate, where Sen. Tom Apodaca, R-Henderson, anticipates a difficult road for the legislation.

"There's not as much an appetite for vouchers in the Senate as there is in the House," Apodaca told the Citizen-Times. "? If you want to go to a private school, I think you should pay for it. It's not the responsibility of the state for your children to go to a private school."

North Carolina's Constitution says, "The people have a right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty of the State to guard and maintain that right.''

It's comforting to find those words in the state's paramount document.

Voters should watch very carefully to see if this General Assembly does in fact guard and maintain that right.

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School voucher system with a different name

The legislative assault on education in North Carolina continued last week as Republican leaders in the House of Representatives have followed through on a pledge ? some might characterize it as a